Spring forward, Fall Back

The night of the spring equinox rolled around, and in the Morrison household myself, Ian, Stanley and Little Joe rolled our way to glory/defeat in Las Vegas. We were expecting Andrew any moment, but he'd assumed an 8pm start and was at home putting his hair on.

 Stan's domain

Ian and Stan played solo; Joe and I were a team with Joe designated dice roller. We played a game of hedge-betting, whilst on the other side of the table things were more dynamic. Dynamism paid off - or it did for Stan, anyway:

Stanley $210,000
Sam and Joe $120,000
Ian $40,000

The boys went upstairs to read, and Ian and I almost played Quoridor. But then we realised that with Andrew texting his agreement to Eclipse, we had better start setting the game up.

Andrew arrived and space conquest began. Ian explored in search of peaceful lands, but found hostiles. Andrew went for his wasp strategy - he can't resist! - and went in search of hostiles, but found empty air. I was lucky: finding a mix of both, in the right order. I also discovered an ancient chit that improved my dice-rolling. Those ancients! They knew how to make an artefact.

Early exploration

Unlike previous games where we have circled the centre hex warily, Ian and I barrelled in there on the same turn. I managed - just - to see off the hordes of Hickman, but my fleet was near-obliterated, and despite nearly defeating the ancients, they saw me off. We wondered whether Andrew wold take advantage of our military weakness, but he carried on exploring, content to keep distant.

endgame

We rebuilt, and re-attacked. But as the final round arrived, there was a proliferation of movement as ships flew in and out of hexes before finally settling into battle. I held onto the central hex, and managed to nab one of Ian and Andrew's. It was enough for the win:

Sam 31
Ian 21
Andrew 15

By the time Eclipse had finished, our evening had morphed from a genial 70's commercial for board-games into a bleak 70's health warning about alcohol. Ian and I both managed to research knowledge we'd already acquired. Andrew forewent his usual Zen fatalism in order to retake a turn, and insisted that not being able to see the research tiles was better.

In light of which it seemed apt that our next game was Extreme Biblios - or Blissful Bibs, as my fumbling fingers and auto-correct decided to call it. The game was notable for Andrew's apparent decision to bid on every colour in the auction, which for some reason gave me the giggles. Or maybe it was his voiced desire for Ian to eat his own sh*t.

Ah, Blissful Bibs...

Ian was more circumspect, but I managed to grab the Mr Biblios title by grabbing Blue, Brown and Red dice:

Sam 10
Ian 2 (wins on Extreme tie-breaker)
Andrew 2

Andrew and Ian started drinking whisky at this point, and we played Love Letter. Ian seemed to morph into a Derren Brown type figure, as he wiped out Andrew (once) and me (twice) with his first guesses.

Discard your future

I never recovered - or got going, to be more exact. Andrew did, though:

Andrew 3
Ian 2
Sam 0

As it was Saturday, we played more games! First up was Push It, which Ian won in the manner of Mike Tyson taking on a couple of small kangaroos.

Ian 9
Sam 5
Andrew 1

one reason I didn't take pics of Push It

But Andrew wasn't going to take that lying down, so we played again. This time it was as tight as it possibly could be, with all of us poised on 8 points. I have no recollection of how I won, but the evidence says I did:

Sam 9
Ian/Andrew 8

Whew! The curtains came down on the evening as we stood up, stretched, and put our coats on (except me, because I was already home). Then Andrew noticed we hadn't played Deep Sea Adventure, so we all sat down again as the curtain went back up.

diving 

I played a similar game to my Incan Gold tactics - safety first; making it back to the sub in all three rounds. I think Ian did similar. Andrew definitely drowned once, possibly twice. But he still remained competitive, which is quite impressive if you're dead:

Sam 36
Ian 34
Andrew 27

panicking

And with that, the evening really did end. They managed to find the front door, so I'm hopeful they both made it home...